


What's in a Name?

by Enchantable



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hazing, Mentors, Smoking, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-22
Updated: 2013-08-22
Packaged: 2017-12-24 06:44:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/936637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enchantable/pseuds/Enchantable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yancy went to the roof for peace, quiet and a cigarette.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's in a Name?

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Hello! I was wondering whether you could write a prompt where Yancy meets Mako before he died?

The smoke curls in the frosted air. 

Sitting on the roof of the Shatterdome he drags off the cigarette. He isn’t supposed to be smoking but the deployment’s just wrapped up and they’ve got a nice chunk of time before he gets back in Gipsy. Whether he is or isn’t supposed to be doing something isn’t why he’s up on the roof of the Shatterdome. he’s a big brother, has been for longer than he can remember. Smoking outside, hiding liquor in coffee cups—the habits are ingrained in him even now. Even now that Raleigh’s old enough to know all his tricks. 

He rolls his shoulder and makes a mental note note to adjust his rig later. He likes working on Gipsy. It reminds him of home, of working on the car with his dad while Raleigh sat on a stool as tall as he was, swinging his legs happily in the empty space. He had the same dopey grin back them too. Yancy can measure Raleigh’s life in that grin. From baby faced to braces to the start of stubble on his jaw. To the ridiculous beard he sported out of laziness. 

Exhaling the smoke he leans back and feels the snow against his jacket. Raleigh’s banged up a bit, sleeping it off in the infirmary. he’s been kicked out of there on Pentecost’s orders. Yancy hates the Marshall sometimes but, as the Marshall loves to remind him, Yancy tends to interfere with the doctors where his brother is concerned. And though he’s been putting band aides on Raleigh’s scrapes since the kind was old enough to get them, these arent scrapes and he’s not a doctor. 

Not that he ever would have been.

he smiles around the cigarette. It’s a game they played at the academy. What would they have been if they weren’t Jaeger pilots. Like the a saddest of games they only play when they’re drunk. Pilots are getting younger, he’s heard about one whose close to fifteen. Least he and Raleigh had the luxury of enlisting as adults. He’s always liked having a purpose. He imagines if there was a war he’d have wound up enlisting anyway. If not he thinks he’d have wound up as something useful, like a mechanic maybe. 

Underneath his feet he hears the door to the roof bang open.

It bangs so hard he feels it through the light coat of snow on the roof. He pushes himself up on his elbows to see a young woman come flying out of the warmth of indoors. The railing catches her and for a heart stopping moment Yancy thinks she might jump. But her fingers wrap around the metal and she grips it for all she’s worth taking long, slow gasps of air as she stares down at the far away ground. 

It’s a credit to the uniform she wears that it takes less than a minute for her to spin around and look at him. Her eyes don’t widen in surprise, they narrow in anger. She’s got tears in them but Yancy doesnt think for a second that she’s sad. She’s upset, yes, but more than that she’s angry. She’s furious in a way that Yancy doesn’t think many people can understand. Or couldn’t understand, these days everyone’s angry.

The color that flushes her cheeks is not purely from the shock of cold. Yancy can see that she is not prepared for the cold, but one look tells her she isn’t going back inside unless someone drags her. Well, she wouldn’t, but being in the presence of a Jaeger pilot does things to cadets. She looks at the door quickly and Yancy blows out his lungful of smoke.

"Don’t go back in on my account," he says, "Roof’s big enough for the both of us," he says with a crooked smile, "the view’s better from up here though if you don’t mind the company."

She bites her lip for a moment and Yancy wonders if she’s going to leave. But then she moves towards the rungs built in to the dome and climbs up to where he’s sitting. He scoots over, showing her where the best place to sit is. She sits down next to him and he fishes in his back pocket for the cigarettes. She’s glaring straight ahead and doesn’t seem to react as he lights up another one. Even so he’s careful to turn his head and blow smoke away from her. 

They sit in silence. He turns the smoke from her and occasionally the girl turns her face away and wipes at her cheeks. Yancy doesn’t try to initiate conversation, she’s clearly not in a talking mood. But he can’t leave her alone either, he wouldn’t leave anyone upset alone. He learned that from having a little brother who essentially wears his emotions painted on his face. 

Finally though she bends her legs up and wraps her arms around them. Yancy shrugs off his jacket and holds it out to her. She looks at him, eyes wide and he motions for her to take it.

"I grew up in weather like this," he says, "you don’t look like you’re ready to go inside yet."

She takes the jacket with reverence and pulls it on. It swamps her form and Yancy can’t help but smile. 

"It’s a little big," he says. Her lips twitch and he presses on, "what’s your name?" He asks.

"Mako Mori," she says.

"Mako," he repeats before the pieces click in to place, "hey you’re Stacker’s kid," he says and she goes red around the cheeks, "I didn’t realize you were a cadet." 

"I’m new," she says quietly, picking at the edge of the jacket and Yancy gives a low whistle of sympathy. 

"So what’d they call you?" He asks. 

Mako looks down hard at her hands and Yancy feels sympathy overwhelm him. The first few months in the academy are rough. They want to break you before they can build you. Physical is only one part of it. Emotional is another. All your weaknesses are exploited and he’s got a feeling Mako’s giving them more than enough to work with. 

"i was Sleeping Beauty," he offers. Mako looks over at him, "I was late by a minute for a briefing and they never ever let me forget it," he runs his hand through his hair, "the princess worthy good looks don’t help."

Mako presses her lips together and Yancy laughs. She fights the smile for another moment before it blossoms on her lips. Yancy can’t help but smile back at her. She smiles with her whole face when she does it, even her eyes seem to shine and not purely from the tears. its the honesty that gets him. People don’t seem to show emotion so purely anymore, definitely not in the Shatterdome. 

She reminds him of Raleigh. 

She’s a wisp of a girl but she reminds him of his stocky little brother. He thinks they’d get along quite well, that or the sheer level of emotional honesty would blow up the Shatterdome. And he definitely doesn’t want to give old man Pentecost another reason not to like him. Yancy exhales another breath of smoke and nods at Mako. 

"Want me to guess?" he asks. 

"Dorothy," she says, "I didn’t understand at first."

Yancy’s smile falls because that just seems cruel. Blue dress, red shoes, sobbing to go home—it fits what they’re after but still. He could think its no-ones fault but that’s not true. It’s the Kaiju’s fault and, if he’s feeling particularly mean it’s also the fault of those damn reporters. Everyone needs a story but turning a kid into a headline seems wrong to him. 

He has a good feeling that’s what’s driven Mako to the roof. He finishes his cigarette and stubs it out before turning to Mako. She’s already got his pack in her hand. He takes one and offers it to her but she shakes her head. He pulls one out and sticks it in his mouth, lighting up and blowing the smoke away from her. 

"Can I give you some advice?" He asks. She nods, "ok, not advice but a story. There was another cadet I was—" he shrugs, "anyway they caught us making out. So I played dead and she kissed me and I just looked our instructor in his eye and said she was just waking me up from my slumber."

Mako laughs at that and Yancy joins in. 

"Look," Yancy says, "the emotional side of this is a game," he says, "you did good not letting them know it upsets you. But you gotta go farther. You gotta show them you own it."

She looks at him quietly, considering his words. Yancy lets the silence go as he finishes his cigarette. When he’s done he and Mako sit together for a long while, watching the sun sink lower in the sky. Finally he pushes himself up. Mako follows him seamlessly and they make their way into the stairwell that leads to the rest of the Shatterdome. 

She slides off the jacket and holds it out to him. He takes it and shrugs it back on, grinning down at her. she wipes under her eyes but there aren’t anymore tears to get rid of. 

"Go warm up," he says. 

"Thank you Ranger Becket," she says. 

"Any time," he says.

She nods and ducks down the stairs. Yancy toys with the edge of his cigarette pack before heading down to the infirmary to strong arm his way in. He’s still the only person who can make Raleigh sleep at night. He spends the night watching Raleigh sleep. In the morning he gets kicked out for coffee. 

he grouses for exactly as long as it takes his eyes to find Mako Mori with her hair in two braids tied with blue bands. 

She’s got her chin up and her eyes defiant, daring them to mock her. And the instructors are looking at her with something just south of respect. He realizes she’s the first person to figure out that trick. He can’t help but grin. He’d have brought a dog in a basket or something. He watches for a moment before grabbing a cup of that decaf swill Raleigh likes and heading to the infirmary. 

Mako ‘Dorothy’ Mori is going to be a hell of a pilot one of these days.


End file.
